Blueprint to fold, content online

January 26, 2008|GAIL BORELLI McClatchy Newspapers

It is with mixed feelings that we bid farewell to Blueprint magazine, which is ceasing publication after less than two years. After the final January/February issue, Blueprint content will appear online and in Martha Stewart Weddings. The bimonthly magazine was an attempt by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to hook younger consumers -- and their pocketbooks -- into the Martha lifestyle. It's a huge market, so why wasn't Blueprint as big a success as, say, Martha Stewart Living? For starters, the magazine was painfully overdesigned. The cover proclaims "Blueprint: Design Your Life," an architectural theme that was reinforced typographically with ruler markings down the side of the pages and assorted printer's dingbats such as arrows and parentheses. Designers mixed up to five of the fussy fonts within headlines and photo captions, resulting in visual chaos that simply made the magazine too much work to read. As for Blueprint's content, it can be summed up by the word "random." The January/February issue includes a beginner's guide to snowboarding, an article on sexy sleepwear, a budget-friendly kitchen remodel, skin-care advice and a vocabulary lesson on the difference between "flounder" and "founder." It was a "throw everything at the wall and see what will stick" editorial strategy. We did like this strategy for dressing up a plain-Jane dresser: After painting your piece of furniture, enlarge a fancy clip-art bureau and decoupage it on the front. The same clip-art strategy can be used on plain file boxes and, for that matter, just about anything around the house.